"Well I've drank a lot of whiskey, ate way too many pills, went around tight corners and had my share of spills."
The Brian Jonestown Massacre are something of an enigma to me. While they have produced some indisputable gems over the past 18 years or so, I find much of their discography somewhat indistinguishable, making it a hard sell for repeated listens in this epoch of digital music overload. Having said this, there was a brief, meteoric three album run in 1996 where their brand of 60s Stones revivalism wedded to an ironic 90s Lo-Fi aesthetic (though BJM are anything but ironic) refracted through a heavy dose of hallucinogenics made for some memorable, compelling work. My favorite among these is Thank God for Mental Illness, which introduced a Country-Blues variation to their sound resulting in some flickering moments of greatness. Three years later, this sound was briefly revisited on the Bringing It All Back Home Again EP, which, at least for me, is the last time BJM sounded relevant. This isn't lush acoustic gloom; rather, it's the kind of thing that sounds like it was recorded with pawn shop guitars at Spahn Ranch (not to mention that one song was actually penned by Charley himself). The gem here is "Reign On" with Miranda Lee Richards doing a more than credible job of channeling Hope Sandoval.
Bringing It All Back Home Again EP
1. The Way It Was (2:50)
2. Mansion in the Sky (2:19)
3. Reign On (4:31)
4. The Godspell According to A.A. Newcombe (3:18)
5. All Things Great and Small (3:06)
6. Arkansas Revisited (13:26)
I feel like I'm a stalker here. I checked and I didn't have this BJM so thanks mate!
ReplyDeletewell, the "stalking" is much appreciated! Thanks again for the comments; it's nice to know someone is out there reading the blog
ReplyDeleteOh BJM! love these guys. they use to dj at a bar i worked at and we would stay after hours listening to records and geeking out over rare psych jams till early in the morning. their love for music runs deep. They still owe me money for doing the photography for "We are the radio" e.p. god bless anton!
ReplyDeleteHi Richard, great comment and glad to have you on the blog!
ReplyDeleteAgain, I completely agree. Thank God For Mental Illness is actually the only BJM album that I own. I’ve listened to some of the other albums, but none of them really had the same feel or prompted repeated listening.
ReplyDeleteexactly! I remember hearing "Thank God..." and getting really excited about this band, but after 2 or 3 more albums, just feeling lost in a sea of sameness. I do think this EP is great too however.
ReplyDeleteI saw them live in a little club years ago and the performance then seemed to more closely resemble the Thank God… stuff. It was very entertaining for many reasons, Anton was starting shit with some silly punk kids who were making fun. Anton kept threatening them and saying something about showing them his FEAR tattoo, and Joel asked me about a dozen times if I had any coke. It was a good time.
ReplyDelete